"The Brits are coming," joked Dave Brailsford, British Cycling's performance director, at the start of stage six of the Tour of Britain in Darlington. But his right-hand man, Shane Sutton, was deadly serious yesterday when he echoed his boss and said that, having achieved near total dominance in track cycling, they have their sights fixed on duplicating that success on the road.

Sutton joined the race for the final stage from Blackpool to Liverpool. What he and Brailsford witnessed over the eight days of the Tour of Britain reinforced their conviction that this is possible and that entering a British team in the 2010 Tour de France is a realistic ambition. Indeed, Sutton, whose title is head coach, revealed yesterday that he is preparing to relinquish his coaching duties to devote more time to setting up the professional road team.

"Five years ago [when the Tour of Britain was relaunched] we weren't at the races," said Sutton, "but across the board here there have been British riders competing and challenging and that shows the potential. We are coming."

Four British riders finished in the top 10, including Steve Cummings and Ian Stannard in second and third, with Dan Fleeman seventh and Russell Downing 10th. A fifth, Dan Martin, is a former British junior champion who has switched allegiance to Ireland after a fall-out with British Cycling. That is a loss, with the nephew of Stephen Roche arguably the brightest prospect of them all, but another four British riders in the top 20 - not to mention the absent Mark Cavendish, cleaning up in the Tour of Missouri - underline the depth of talent.

"Cycling in this country is on a high," said Sutton. "You can see that in the quality of the racing and also in the crowds. In the old days when cars were stopped for the race people would complain but here they've been getting out their cars and taking photographs. Maybe it's the Beijing effect but there's a feelgood factor and we really want to carry that momentum into the road side of the sport now.

"We have the expertise to move the plans for the team forward and we have the talent coming through," said Sutton. "The Tour de France seems pretty ambitious, and 2010 seems a long way off but I'm pretty sure that with Dave's [Brailsford] drive and enthusiasm driving it forward it will come to fruition."

Sutton will remain a member of British Cycling's four-person management group, alongside Chris Boardman, Steve Peters and Brailsford but his new role will free him to wrestle with the complexities of setting up the road team. It is complex, as he explained, because so many riders have signed two-year contracts, taking them to 2011.

There have also been suggestions that Cavendish will be tempted to stay where he is, rather than risk joining a new, unestablished team. "We need to have a team that these guys - Cavendish, Geraint Thomas, Ben Swift, Jonny Bellis and the other young riders - want to belong to because it's the best in the world, not because it's British," said Sutton. "I'm quite sure that once we have this team set up they'll want to come running back."

While no main sponsor has been announced, it is expected that Sky Sports, which is sponsoring British Cycling from grass-roots schemes to elite track racing, will be confirmed as the backer, committing up to £24m for four years. Brailsford has previously said he believes a British rider can win the Tour "in the medium term", which he defines as "five to 10 years" from the inception of the team.

Continuing the feelgood factor in Liverpool yesterday was the announcement by Hugh Roberts, chief executive of the Tour of Britain, that his organisation will run a series of 10 televised town-centre races next year. "They will be held over five weeks from the last week of May and the whole of June," he said.

Roberts also confirmed that next year's Tour of Britain could be extended from eight to nine days, with the start likely to be in Yorkshire.

GB's kings of the road

Jonny Bellis Rode the Tour of Britain as a triallist with CSC-Saxo Bank and is expected to sign a two-year deal

Mark Cavendish Contracted to Team Columbia until end of next season, but soaring value could price him out

Steve Cummings With South Africa's Barloworld team until end of 2009

Dan Fleeman Has reportedly signed with the new Cervelo team, led by Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre

Ian Stannard Rumoured to be interesting Garmin. A two-year contract would rule him out in 2010

Ben Swift Has reportedly signed for the new Russian team, Katusha, again for two years

Geraint Thomas The Olympic gold medallist is contracted to Barloworld until the end of next season

Bradley Wiggins Has just signed a two-year contract with Garmin

Charly Wegelius A specialist climber, he is joining the Silence-Lotto team in 2009, where his job will be to help Cadel Evans win the Tour de France